Three cities in Maharashtra — Pune, Navi Mumbai and Greater Mumbai — top the first Ease of Living Index brought out by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
The national capital, New Delhi, is ranked 65 among 111 cities, while Chennai is in 14th place.
Patna ranked the lowest of 111. Kolkata did not participate in the survey.
A city’s ranking reflects its ability to provide data, as well as its actual performance on four different parameters which are -
Institutions or governance,
Social indicators,
Economic indicators and
Physical infrastructure.
Urban local bodies had been required to respond to 553 questions in 15 different categories under the four parameters.
The cities which were unable or unwilling to provide data received low scores.
If no data was given for any indicator under a category then the score for this category will be zero.
New Delhi has a score of “zero” on indicators regarding inclusive housing and mixed land use and compactness, and a score of just 0.12 on economy and employment.
There is a possibility that future editions of the Index may also incorporate citizen and stakeholder feedback rather than relying on government data alone.
Moreover, it was a challenge to collect some of this information from data-starved urban local bodies.
Particular complications were seen in indicators such as health —where local governments did not have access to data from private hospitals.
The consortium assisted cities in plugging the data gap with regard to certain indicators.
The other cities in the top 10 include Tirupati, Chandigarh, Thane, Raipur, Indore, Vijayawada and Bhopal.
The three cities at the bottom of the rankings are Rampur, Kohima and Patna.
